'Sonic Attack' Mystery: MRIs Reveal Changes to Structure of the Brain

Share on PinterestPersonnel from the U.S. embassy in Cuba reported unusual symptoms starting in 2016. Getty Images

New research reveals some answers and more questions in the saga of U.S. government workers who were subjected to an alleged “sonic attack” in Havana, Cuba.

During the latter part of 2016 through 2017, U.S. government personnel serving in Havana began reporting a constellation of neurological problems commonly associated with concussion or mild traumatic brain injury, including dizziness, nausea, and memory problems.

Symptoms were reported following exposure to what was described as a loud strange noise.

Now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have taken a further step in identifying what happened through the use of brain imaging.

In a new study published today in JAMA, researchers found structural changes in the brains of the diplomats who had served in Cuba compared with a similar control group.

“It was absolutely shocking,” said Ragini Verma, PhD, professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the JAMA study. “We’ve never seen in such a small population consistent differences, so ‘shocking’ is a good word.”

The participating group of U.S. personnel was quite small, only 40 patients.

Verma and her team used a battery of MRI techniques to hone in on a variety of demonstrable changes in the brain, such as differences in the volume of white matter. Despite their findings, none of what they found appeared to match other common patterns of injury, including most notably, concussion.

“The pattern of differences was not something that we see in other pathologies,” said Verma.

“The only hypothesis we had is that something should be wrong with the cerebellum and we saw imaging differences in the cerebellum. So that means that there is a clinical correlate with the symptoms they were showing,” she said.

Share on PinterestMRI scans revealed major changes to the area of brain called the cerebellum. Photo courtesy of the JAMA Network

The cerebellum is an area of the brain that controls things like coordination, balance, and equilibrium. So, finding differences in this region would seem to go hand in hand with many of the symptoms that the diplomats had previously reported.

Previous work by researchers at U. Penn published in 2018 involved 24 individuals with suspected exposure in Havana. They found persistent dysfunction in eye movement, coordination, and balance.

Nonetheless, the study still leaves many unanswered questions, and other experts have been skeptical in attributing symptoms to brain injury sustained from some kind of sonic weaponry.

Dr. Eu Meng Law, professor of radiology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California explained, “Even though it does suggest a reasonably definite abnormality in the brain, I guess even the authors would contend that these are very small numbers and preliminary findings.”